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The silicon is rarely exposed to air though. This is just a manufacturing issue, isnt it?

Good point. I have to confess that I didn't think about that. Then again I know very little of how much air a silicon chip is exposed to from manufacturing to actual use in a working system.

I suppose so, but it's easier to have your factory with ultra-clean air than have it with inert gases.

With submersion litography and the silicon wafers being in inert gas chambers for annealing to prevent oxidation faults I’m not sure that’s actually the case.

You usually don’t want to expose anything to oxygen especially something that is only a few nanometers thick so even if the base silicon does not oxidize (which afaik it does) once you begin the doping process not to mention laying down the metal layers oxygen is a big no no, the oxide layer that form on say copper coins is thicker than the copper layers in most ICs so I really don’t see oxygen as being viable medium during manufacturing.

Based on this it seems that when Oxygen is used it’s used as a purge gas https://www.globalspec.com/learnmore/materials_chemicals_adh...

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